Hey guys,
Ive recently rigged a new character in 3DS Max 9. This character has more bones, more control objects, and more under-the-hood goodness than any of my previous rigs. Everything behaves perfectly when posing and animating in the viewport; however, for a few controls (about 5 out of 60) adjusting keys and/or tangents in the graph editor is painfully slow.
Is there any known cause for this in Max 9? I do have a few script controllers in there are those still a speed problem? Any other known culprits for graph editor/track view slow down? I found this older thread and tried all the suggestions to no avail. The only thing I can think to do is replace my script controllers with expression controllers wherever possible. Would that be worth my time? Any other thoughts?
Thank you in advance.
- Dave
Are you using the new script controllers and defining proper variables / tracks in the left hand panel?
Hmmm… I thought so but maybe not. I’m using the Float Script option in the default Assign Controller dialog. Is that a new script controller?
I believe that I’m assigning my variables correctly. Using the left hand panel I created a variable name, for example “blend” and assigned it to a Bezier Float controller of a custom attribute on another object. Then I have a script that looks something like this:
if ( blend.value >= 0 and blend.value <= 1 )
then ( do some stuff )
else ( 0 )
Most of the places I am using Script Controllers have pretty simple scripts. I could probably replace them with Expression controllers if doing so would solve the problem. What do you think?
Thank you for the reply, Dave.
Hey Dave,
To be honest I’ve not tinkered in that bit of max for a while, so I’m not really in a good position to advise you right now. But I thought “a” reply, rather than “no” reply would be reassuring, and it may have been that it was something simple I might have known.
I do know that having the track view open will slow things down quite a lot sometimes, and I don’t know teh reason myself. Hang tight, and I’m sure someone more knowledgable than me will come to your rescue!
Cheers,
Dave
That’s cool, thank you Dave. I appreciate you taking the time to offer your thoughts and encouragement. If I hit a wall then I’ll try the expression controllers and see how it goes.
Thanks again.
- Dave
Dave,
I’ve also had this issue in the past. A few things that I’ve noticed, if you are in direct 3d mode it will slowdown the track editor and undo. Switching to open gl fixed the issue. However, also we switched how our materials are displayed and that also speed up the track editor. I’m not sure if these issues are related but maybe this information is helpful.
Hope this is helpful
- Alex
Thank you Alex. Yeah, I have noticed that using Direct X materials kills the speed of several tasks in Max. Thankfully I am able to use standard materials for the animation scenes.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by switching how the materials are displayed? I’d be interested to give that a try.
Thanks,
Dave